All 26 writers on stage at once for YA games!
Presented by Chas. County Public Library YA Services
MCs: Kaleb Nation and Sarah Rees Brennan

The first panel may be a problem for me: I like demons and magic users. I may end up viciously attacking my own arguments, like a dog chewing its own tail. The second panel, well, I totally know how to talk about dystopias: other people make cogent arguments about society and oil resources and war, and I say ‘Have you ever considered that Where The Wild Things Are is a dystopia? Max does not seem to me fit for the position of King of All Wild Things. Just sayin’.’

I assume I get to moderate the dystopia panel because I have a story in the YA dystopia anthology After, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (fancy people!) with many other fancy people in it. Behold!

After

Introduction
The Segment by Genevieve Valentine
After the Cure by Carrie Ryan
Valedictorian by N.K. Jemisin
Visiting Nelson by Katherine Langrish
All I Know of Freedom by Carol Emshwiller
The Other Elder by Beth Revis
The Great Game at the End of the World by Matthew Kressel
Reunion by Susan Beth Pfeffer
Faint Heart by Sarah Rees Brennan
Blood Drive by Jeffrey Ford
Reality Girl by Richard Bowes
Hw th’Irth Wint Wrong by Hapless Joey @ homeskool.guv by Gregory Maguire
Rust With Wings by Steven Gould
The Easthound by Nalo Hopkinson
Gray by Jane Yolen
Before by Carolyn Dunn
Fake Plastic Trees by Caitlin R. Kiernan
You Won’t Feel a Thing by Garth Nix
The Marker by Cecil Castellucci

I am not sure how that happened: I am definitely not cool enough to be on that list. But I’m very pleased. My story Faint Heart was based on an idea I’ve talked about before – a future world where the social rules are like the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Courtly love, and chivalry, and clones. But forget about me: did you see who else is in the anthology? My gracious. It’s out next year. Next year is a big year for me!

Speaking of next year being a big year, if you happen to be in Charleston this weekend, there will be signings after every panel. As well as signing any books, I will have Team Human stickers to give out! Should you happen to want a sticker that says ‘Friends don’t let friends date vampires.’ AWESOME ADVICE!

I will also have booklets of the first three chapters of Unspoken with me, free to good homes.

And Unspoken, as well as coming out in the US from Random House, is coming out in Czech from Levne knihy, and in the UK, Ireland and Australia from Simon & Schuster UK, who already published (and beautifully covered!) the Demon’s Lexicon series. I’m really happy, as my UK editor Venetia Gosling (doesn’t she have the best name?) is the first person I ever pitched Unspoken to.

SARAH: Whenever I see people with a psychic bond I just can’t help but wonder how that’s meant to uncomplicate a relationship.
VENETIA: Well, reading someone’s mind is meant to be a sign of connection–of love.
SARAH: And you would love them. And hate them. You’d be all mixed up about them you’d hardly know. Not having even the slightest veil over all your secrets would be so strange. I mean, just think about what you’d feel like if you came downstairs in the morning and your husband thought something unflattering about your outfit.
VENETIA: What might he think about my outfit…?
SARAH: Somebody has to write a book about how strange, and co-dependent, and addictive, and tangled and terrible it would be, to have that kind of bond.
VENETIA: But let’s get back to the issue of my outfit.
SARAH: You see how it’s already tearing us apart.

But nothing could tear me and Simon & Schuster UK apart! I love their Lexicon covers–I’m so excited for my Unspoken cover. (Whether I will have different covers in different countries: yet to be seen!) But lovely that I will have a book out next year on Irish and English shelves, so my family won’t think I’m fibbing about this ‘being a writer’ lark.

My friend and awesome author lady Saundra Mitchell made me a beautiful book trailer for Unspoken which made me clap softly to myself. I cannot wait for people to read it!